While rational choice models of institutional choice in East-Central Europe offer many insights, they suffer major empirical failings. I test the possibility of improving upon such models by allowing for multiple goals and by using cultural and other information to specify actors? goals, while retaining the rational choice assumption that events can be understood in terms of actors? goal-maximizing behaviour. I build a model based on the Hungarian case, focusing on choices regarding electoral systems and the presidency. I then assess this model through extension to Czechoslovakia. I find that, while the model does offer significant insights, it also fails in important respects. The reasons for these failures suggest that the problems of rational choice are more fundamental than can be solved through multi-motivational modelling alone: culture must be used also to define the limits of choice itself.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished ManuscriptReview Method: Peer ReviewedAbstract: While rational choice models of institutional choice in East-Central Europe offer many insights, they suffer major empirical failings. I test the possibility of improving upon such models by allowing for multiple goals and by using cultural and other information to specify actors? goals, while retaining the rational choice assumption that events can be understood in terms of actors? goal-maximizing behaviour. I build a model based on the Hungarian case, focusing on choices regarding electoral systems and the presidency. I then assess this model through extension to Czechoslovakia. I find that, while the model does offer significant insights, it also fails in important respects. The reasons for these failures suggest that the problems of rational choice are more fundamental than can be solved through multi-motivational modelling alone: culture must be used also to define the limits of choice itself.

1 Can Political Culture Solve the Problems of Rational Choice? Explanations of Institutional Choice in Hungary and Czechoslovakia 1989 ­ 1990 Paper Delivered at the American Political Science Association Conference Boston 30th August 2002 Alan Renwick Un iversity of Oxford St John's College Oxford OX1 3JP alan.renwick@sjc.ox.ac.uk Abstract While rational choice models of institutional choice in East­Central Europe offer many insights they suffer major empirical failings. I test the possibility of im proving upon such models by allowing for